Magnes Show Ticks Through Cultural Responses to Time

Kelly St. John, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Friday, November 17, 2000

Time heals all wounds. Time waits for no one. Time is money.

Time, and the constant desire for more of it, dominates today's harried world of alarm clocks and instant messaging. But long before the invention of clocks, people marked time's passage with the sun and stars, for as long -- one supposes -- as time itself.

Titled "Telling Time: To Everything There Is a Season," the two-year show that opened in May was expanded this month to its full size. It combines 250 paintings, drawings, sculptures, rare books, films, photographs and ritual objects from all six of the Jewish museum's collections into one display.

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Organized by the four seasons, the show traces a calendar year, beginning in autumn with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.

The "Fall and Winter" displays -- which include harvests, aging and death rituals -- were installed Nov. 5. The "Spring and Summer" displays -- which incorporate birth, coming of age and marital celebrations -- have been showing since May.

"Telling Time" centers on Judaism, but also explores how other cultures use traditions to mark time's passage. So the Magnes' treasures -- including a 1870-1910 gilded Torah ark from Ernakulam, India -- are mingled with displays on Mexico's Day of the Dead, Quakers' views on activism and coming of age rituals among African Americans.

Incorporating other traditions fits with the museum's mission of fostering a healthy dialogue between Jewish and other cultures, said its director, Susan Morris.

"Every culture uses traditions to mark time. The more people understand how one culture lives, the more they may understand another." Ultimately, she said,

that fights intolerance.

An elusive concept, time has perhaps been best captured by poets. Robert Herrick told virgins to "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still aflying." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow warned "Art is long, but time is fleeting. "

Longfellow and Herrick's words are part of a computerized display by Ed Tannenbaum at the exhibition's entrance. The piece is an electronic clock of sorts, a circle of six video screens that show the passage of time. A candle burns, a woman ages from birth to age 96, and an ape evolves into a human.

According to the myth, a vessel holding all the light of the world shattered, scattering it throughout the universe. Most of it came back together, but not all, leaving Jews with a mission of searching for the missing shards, Chayes said.

"It's the job of Jewish people to make it whole," Chayes said. "Everything we do is to put it together again."

Artist Bruce Cannon put a modern spin on the Jewish view of charity. Under Jewish law, giving to the poor is not viewed as a generous, magnanimous act, but an act of justice and duty. A preferred way to give is when neither donor nor recipient know each other's identity, reads the display.

Cannon created an ancient-looking Tzedakah box, used to collect these anonymous gifts, but added a modern twist: an electronic dollar-bill slot.

In summer, Jews celebrate Tishah be-Av, which commemorates the destruction of the first two Jewish temples in Jerusalem. The Tishah be-Av display examines the Holocaust and discrimination against African Americans and other minority groups.

The Magnes also displays a burned chair recovered from a Sacramento synagogue after a 1999 arson fire.

Throughout the show, antique treasures also figure heavily. Spring includes a 17th-century engraved circumcision bowl; summer features a get, or letter of divorce, written in Arabic in 1649.

"Telling Time" was an unusual show for the Magnes to construct because it is so complex, reaching across the museum's six disparate collections.

It was indeed a challenge, Morris said, "But that, too, was the joy of it. To recognize that each piece has a depth in how it can be studied and examined. "

To encourage that study, the show asks visitors to share their reactions and cultural experiences. Many of the museum's visitors are Jewish, but "Telling Time" is designed to be accessible to all.

One question asks: "When did you become an adult?" Among the answers penciled into a book: "The day I knew my parents weren't perfect," and "I became an adult when I had a child."

Fresh scrutiny of the familiar, and new discoveries. Said Morris, "It's provocative, and we intend it to be just that."

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TIME FOR DETAILS

"Telling Time: To Everything There Is a Season" runs through May 2002 at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St., Berkeley. The museum is open from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday-Thursday. (510) 549-6950.

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